


Overcome By Sleep

by Mussimm



Series: Works and Days [6]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-07-28 21:13:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7656946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mussimm/pseuds/Mussimm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven stages of grief post-canon ficlets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shock

The day the Wall fell Brienne was delayed in Molestown. It was a simple resupply run with a few of the other knights and a small army of squires. A snowstorm had hit during the night and they were still digging half their men out of the snowed-in buildings.

There was talk of great feats all along the Wall. Men’s tales were filled with dragons and magic, flaming swords and ice spiders as big as hounds. Brienne saw none of it, just endless, starless, moonless night and a horde of the undead which clawed at the walls and at her nightmares. If there was a Great Other most never saw him. If there was some final battle she was not present.

All these otherworldly tales had seemed so distant until that day.

A great crack could be heard even so far away, a rift in the ice. The whole village had stopped their work and turned to stare. They could only faintly see the top of the Wall, lit by distant braziers, and when the straight line bent and writhed and fell away no one breathed a sound. A great white cloud of snow and ice billowed outwards in the distance, slowly rising to almost the same height as the Wall itself had stood and hanging in the air.

Brienne’s mind would not believe what her eyes were telling her. Some faraway part of her knew that this could mean they would be overwhelmed with wights within the hour. Mayhaps the Seven Kingdoms would now fall. But the thoughts stirred nothing in her heart. All she could do was stare at that white cloud where the Wall used to be.

Their armies were gone. Sansa was safe, most of the ladies had fallen back as the wights became overwhelming. Had Queen Danaerys been there? She couldn’t say. But their armies, most of the leadership of the Seven Kingdoms, any hope they had against the others had all been wiped out in an instant.

King Jon was gone, the united North might have died with him.

Gasps rose up from the crowd that had gathered. It took Brienne a moment, but soon it became obvious that the sky was growing ever so slightly lighter. It was no longer midnight, but twilight. The sun was going to rise.

They had done it, whatever it was. Whatever the secret key to this war, they had found and used it in her absence.

Brienne’s numb feet led her back inside. When she couldn’t see the white cloud anymore she started to shiver. It was too much. She sat down heavily, her legs unable to support her. It was too much. It was too much and now it was over.

She would go back to Tarth and try to forget she had ever left in the first place. Tears burned in her eyes and she had no strength to fight them. She would go home and forget. She would be a battle-scarred old veteran in fifty years who told tales of the house of the Dead and wouldn’t be believed by any of the youngsters.

Tears finally spilled down her cheeks but she was too weak to sob. Her chest was so tight she could barely breathe.

Jaime’s patrol was supposed to arrive back at the Wall the night before.

He was gone.


	2. Denial

“She is  _ not dead _ ,” Jaime told Marbrand, ploughing through the snow and ice, the rubble of the Wall looming up before them.

“Ser Jaime, stop,” Marbrand begged. “You know she was there. Her run was due back last night. We need to go back safely, not plough into a thousand tonnes of ice.”

“We were due back last night, as well.” He kept pushing forward, ignoring the blistering pain of the cold as the snow soaked his trousers to the thigh. “Some buildings may still be standing, there may be survivors buried in the rubble. We need to be back there now.”

She wasn’t dead. Her horse had gone lame. Molestown had come under attack. She’d had to go further south for supplies. She was lying under the rubble and waiting for him. Anything.

He hadn’t survived this war and won the right to marry her to lose her now. He hadn’t lost her.

The sky was turning grey, the same endless twilight that had heralded this war. It had been a strange in-between place where he had, for the first time in his life, been granted his freedom. What good would his freedom be without her? He couldn’t chase his desires to the grave.

He kept walking.

“ _ Jaime _ .” Marbrand grabbed him by the arm and wrenched him around so they were face to face.

“If this is another one of your fucking lectures on maintaining appearances…”

“I know, alright?” The older man wasn’t angry anymore, his face betrayed nothing but pity. “ _ I know _ . My wife was in Lannisport when it fell. I understand. But you killing us all trying to get to her won’t make her any less dead. It won’t make her any more alive if you’re right.”

Jaime struggled to take a deep breath, his chest painfully tight. Marbrand was right. Brienne and her lame horse weren’t going anywhere. He could see her expression when he showed up with his men exhausted and underfed because he’d been pushing them so hard – exasperated, slightly disdainful, pretending she wasn’t glad to see him however he showed up.

Jaime nodded and tried to move forward again, but the iron bands tightening around his chest paralysed him. He couldn’t breathe. His eyes burned.

“Marbrand…”

Addam put an arm around his shoulders and turned him forward, away from his men. “We’re just going to keep moving awhile. One foot in front of the other. Are you able?”

One foot in front of the other. Jaime did as instructed, eyes focussed on the ground. One foot in the soft white snow. Then another. He couldn’t breathe.

She couldn’t be dead.


	3. Anger

Days passed and the sky grew lighter. There was no way to tell the time, but she thought it must have been the third day when she found herself with Oathkeeper’s blade to a man’s throat. He looked like a Riverlander, with his red hair and pale skin.

“What did you call me?” she asked.

The man scowled up at her, frightened but defiant. “You heard me.”

“Say it again.” She let her blade nick the man’s throat.

“Kingslayer’s whore,” the man said.

Brienne leaned forward, towering over the man. Blood was starting to drip down his throat for the cut. His chest heaved as his breaths came hard.

“Lie to me again.”

The man’s fury rose, his colour heightening and his knuckles whitening around the mug he held. He was unarmed, he wasn’t even on his feet. People were staring. Let them stare, she didn’t care. She had enough nicknames and now she drew the line.

He drew in a few noisy breaths through his nose then spat, “Kingslayer’s widow.”

She leaned forward further until their faces were close, pressing her blade further into his neck to prove her point. He was unarmed _._ She spoke each word clearly, singularly. “Ser Jaime Lannister, Lord of Casterly Rock, Lord Paramount of the Westerlands and Warden of the West has not been declared dead. Ser Jaime and I are not wed. Do you understand?”

The room around her had fallen to a dead hush.

He was unarmed.

“Say it again,” she challenged. The man stayed silent, so she looked about the room at large. “Any of you. Call me that again. Do it with sword in hand.”

“Brienne,” Queen Sansa’s soft voice broke her trance. A small hand on her elbow encouraged her away from the man. “Brienne, come.”

Anger and humiliation still raged in her chest but Brienne managed to straighten and follow her Queen outside. The cold was bracing, she hadn’t realised how hot her skin had flushed. Panting breaths, almost sobs, dragged themselves from her throat.

Sansa said nothing, just held her by the elbow and let her rage against herself.

_ I am _ a  _ maid,  _ she wanted to yell.  _ We never had the chance. We had a thousand chances and wasted them all. _

They shouldn’t speak about him like that. Not yet. Not until they’d recovered the body. Not until she had a chance to grieve.

Sansa gripped her tighter as tears threatened once more.


	4. Bargaining

“I’ll go to the next camp.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“We are moving too slowly,” Jaime kicked the snow at his feet, sending a shower of white dust into the wind.  “This group is headed to Dorne, surely you can’t fault me for trying to find the Westerlands party?”

Marbrand shrugged. “You are the Lord of Casterly Rock, you can do whatever you like. But you’re not trying to find the Westerlands party.”

He wasn’t. There wasn’t a man in his party that believed he was. He couldn’t even convince himself of it. Someone had to know something. Anyone from Crows Roost might be able to tell him if her party arrived. But no one from Crows Roost had survived so far, and precious few from other castles.

None of the men had wives or lovers here. Some had shieldmates and they asked around with the same edge of desperation as Jaime himself. But he appeared to be the one sorry bastard in the Seven Kingdoms who had his betrothed in the thick of the fighting. None of the men he asked understood his frantic need.

If someone could just tell him she was gone he would believe them. Go back to Casterly rock and be a good little lord and name Tyrion’s sons as his heirs. They wouldn’t have Tarth but who cared? Tarth was worth nothing without the Evenstar.

“Just tell me when you’ll be satisfied,” Marbrand said. “Your men will search with you. We’ll find the Stormlands party, find the Winterfell party. Just tell me what you need to hear to be at peace.”

Jaime stormed into the trees. He needed to be free of Marbrand’s nagging for a while. He didn’t know what would convince him. They’d been searching for so long, half the North was full of parties heading for home as soon as they could resupply. None knew anything.

Everything seemed so normal in the aftermath. The dead were mourned, but by the time they arrived back to the others everyone had already begun the process of organising groups to take the soldiers back to their homes. Food was distributed, wounds patched up, whores fucked. It was just life as it had always been. It wouldn’t be put on hold for anything, not even the collapse of the Wall.

If he walked away now he would never be free of this place.

The avalanche of the falling Wall would haunt his dreams. It had been like the whole world was collapsing as far as he could see. The earth shook, the trees fell. It had been Ragnarok and it had consumed all his hopes along with it.

He couldn’t just watch that and accept that Brienne was gone. His mind was haunted with images of her trapped under timber and ice, bleeding and dying. If that were the case she’d be long dead by now but he couldn’t get it out of his mind. It was a ghost that followed him.

If he left this place without knowing she would always live in his mind with the end of the world.


	5. Depression

The sky was grey.

Lighter every hour, but still grey.

The snow fell knee deep and every step took so much effort. Brienne wanted to sleep. Every morning she had to drag herself from her furs. Her armour had doubled in weight and Oathkeeper threatened to anchor her to the ground. She just wanted to sleep.

She saw her dull eyes reflected back in Sansa’s face. The weight of loss hung heavy on them.

She knelt in the snow before the young queen, in a line of a dozen men. Sansa used Pod’s sword to touch her shoulder lightly.

It had seemed so important once, to have this recognition. It tasted like ash now. Brienne had been a knight for as long as she could remember. She wielded a sword, protected the innocent, served her lord or lady. It hadn’t saved those crushed under the ice, or many before that. Another title wouldn’t change that, it was just one more on an endless list of names people called her.

Would people call her Ser Brienne now? Did it even make any sense? Jaime had been a knight and she was the only one who called him Ser Jaime. His knighthood hadn’t stopped the sneers of  _ Kingslayer _ , it had encouraged them. Would people see her the same way, now? Would her knighthood only make her imagined dishonour that much worse in the eyes of others?

So much made sense now that she hadn’t understood before. The revulsion in his eyes in the baths at Harrenhal. His knighthood had broken its promise. It was supposed to be glorious. A pure white cloak to shield him from dishonour only it did nothing but bring more down on his head. She understood now. If she hadn’t been sworn to another she would have been with him on his patrol for better or worse. She would have had have died with his hand in hers instead of facing return to a frozen, lonely island in the sea. If she hadn’t cared about her honour she would have spent the last few months curled about him at night, hands in his hair.

Instead she was a knight and it was not glorious.

She would go back to Winterfell and help Queen Sansa solidify her hold on the North and then she would go back to Tarth. She would marry a fortune hunter and secure the future of her line. She would rule as her father had.

Brienne rose to her feet, looking down at Sansa. The little queen took her hands and spoke quietly. “I’m proud of you, Brienne. This is a great moment for you.”

Sansa’s eyes shone with a desperate light. They all needed this to mean what it would have meant before the Night.

Brienne tried to smile but fell short. “I’m honoured, your grace.”

“He’d be proud of you,” Sansa insisted with a note of frenzy in her voice. “He would.”

“I know, your grace.”  _ Would he? _


	6. Testing

“So what now?”

The scout had come back. She wasn’t with the Stormlands party. The Westermen were ready to leave, milling about with packed trunks and cloth bags and bundles full of supplies. His men were armoured, their horses fed and watered. It was time to go and he had said the Stormlands men would be his last hope.

The sky was bright, the sun threatening to rise at any moment.

If it were one of the stories Jaime would have to face reality at this point. Wail and beat his chest and admit she was –

Jonquil hadn’t waited for her Florian forever.

He didn’t pretend to hope, but despair couldn’t be his just yet. He still had to put foot in front of foot for the next month or more. Perhaps once he was at Casterly Rock he would have the time. If his sister still lived he would lock himself away from her and beat his fists bloody on the stone. But now the only way to keep putting foot in front of foot was to not think on it at all.

He had lived for years without her. He had hopes and dreams and purpose outside her. It hadn’t been until so recently that he had begun to build up in his mind a future which included her. So for now it was better to believe that she hadn’t existed at all.

He was a maid and was to become a spinster. How low he had sunk since he was knighted.

If he was lucky he could relegate this all to some dream, the scary story told by nursemaids to little boys, as it would surely become. It would be a mythical figure like Bran the Builder or Lann the Clever who rotted under a mountain of ice. Young boys would grow old digging through the rubble for the valyrian steel sword buried with Brienne the Beauty. She would be so beautiful in the tales.

Brienne the Blue, he decided. When he told the story to Tyrion’s children or Bronn’s, she would be Brienne the Blue. A maid with eyes as blue as the waters of Tarth.

“We make for the Rock,” Jaime told the scout. “Fetch Ser Addam for me and prepare to ride.”

He wouldn’t make her a beauty in his tales, she would hate that. He might make her taller. Nine feet tall with hair as white and radiant as the sun and a sword so large it could fell a charging horse.

Around him men started to mount up, his orders spreading.  The few brackish trees had been trampled flat to make their camp, the snow wasn’t melting but it wasn’t falling so fast anymore either. They would have easy passage south.

He turned to seek his squire and horse but something caught his eye and he turned back.

A single figure pushed through the snow from the east carrying a crowned direwolf banner. A familiar figure.

Something beat back to life in Jaime’s chest.

“Pod!” he called.

The young man stumbled forward, tripping over himself in the snow. He had been with Brienne’s supply run. If he wasn’t dead…

“My lord,” Pod bowed, panting from exertion. “We thought you were dead. Ser did. Lady – Princess –  _ Queen _ Sansa is coming here. To knight the men, the ones who need it. Ser is with her, ser.”

Jaime’s breath came hard, the thought in his mind so white hot he didn’t dare touch it. He tried to wet his papery tongue enough to speak. “Who is coming?”

“Queen Sansa, ser. And ser, that is, my lady, she’s a knight now.”

The whole world narrowed to a single point.

“ _ Peck, my horse! _ ”


	7. Acceptance

The first ray of sun burst through the trees to the east, blinding Brienne. The light hit the snow and scattered, casting the world brilliant to night-darkened eyes.

The sound of a galloping horse breaking through the shrubs echoed over the silent landscape and Brienne along with Queen Sansa’s entourage scanned the trees to see what messenger was coming to them in such haste.

It was such a strange thing. The rider’s horse looked like Honour, Jaime’s white charger. Decked out in Lannister crimson with gold-studded reins. The rider wore darkened armour with golden lions about the gorget and pauldrons. He even wore Jaime’s golden hand.

She was sure she’d had this dream before.

“Brienne!” his voice was so far off, carrying across the snow.

Brienne’s hands and feet and voice would not respond to her. She would wake at any moment.

Her gut clenched as he came closer. It was not possible.

“Brienne!” the rider cried again, closer and closer and still she did not wake.

Her eyes burned at the sight of his golden hair mussed by the wind. Her throat tightened at the fear and hope on his face.

Brienne wasn’t going to wake. It was real. 

She tore off her helm and kicked her horse forward.

It all came back to her as she bore down on him, the feeling of having the life crushed out of her, watching all her hope buried under ice. She could hardly see as tears flooded her eyes and her breath came in gasping sobs.

She pulled her horse to a halt beside his, their legs crushed between the beasts, both their mounts covering them in a fresh flurry from their hooves kicking up the powdery white snow.

Then his hand was in her hair, clenched so tightly that it hurt, and he pressed his forehead to her cheek, their skin burning, their tears flowing together.

“ _ Jaime, _ ” she gasped into his hair.

“You’re alive,” he moaned.

She shuddered and sobbed against him, his stuttering breath against her face and neck setting her skin to scorching. He was alive, all she should feel was joy and yet all she could see was how huge a hollow he carved in her by leaving. She could see the size of it now she didn’t have to confront living with it all her days.

Jaime groaned and peppered kisses along her jaw and cheekbone. “You’re alive,” he whispered between kisses. “You’re alive.”

The relief broke like a dam in her chest and suddenly she was laughing and sniffling and cupping his face with her hands, running her fingers over him to prove that he was real. He laughed and sniffed with her, leaning in to nuzzle her face with his nose and sending gusts of warm breath through her hair when he laughed.

Brienne held his face back from hers, searching for something she couldn’t name, proving to her eyes what her skin already knew. His eyes were red-rimmed but his smile was so joyous she grinned with him.

“Marry me,” he said.

She sniffed, nodded and felt him laugh against her hair as he pulled her close once more.


End file.
